This _sententia_ is indeed circular, as every self-respecting sencond-year Latin student knows. It is precisely the ceasless interplay between dogma and worship that is the point here: as the Puritans so rightly intuited, true worship and true dogma go hand in hand because their intersection produces whole Christian persons (one might call this formative intersection the “lex vivendi”). But add anything aberrant to the mix, and the results will be not only catastrophic, but also self-perpetuating, as you well note. (By the way, St Irenaeus also echoes the thrust of the _sententia_ when he writes: “Our opinion is in conformity with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our
opinion”.)

The Lordship of Jesus Christ makes a claim on the entirety of life, and indeed nothing in them can be considered as spiritually insignificant. But the failure to recognize this is not only a problem of our society; I believe it is inherent to our fallen brokenness. Those of us from Christian Traditions such as Eastern Orthodoxy, with its canons and fasting and feasting, often mistake these means for the end; others have different temptations. The final goal is union with Christ, as St Paul so often emphasizes, yet the path to this integral wholeness is never easy. But then, “it is through many trials and tribulations that we must enter the Kindgdom of God” (cfr. Acts 14:22).